Of course, if demand for electric vehicles takes off, production would have to increase significantly. Perhaps a good way to think about future demand for lithium is to consider that 9 kilograms (about 20 pounds) of it goes into the Tesla Model S 990-pound battery pack. The Tesla can go about 250 miles on a single electric charge. A ton of lithium is enough to produce 111 Tesla batteries, and in 2013 the world produced 35,000 metric tons of lithium. Current lithium production could therefore notionally supply batteries to power just under 3.9 million Tesla Model S cars. In 2013, US-based automakers produced just over 11 million vehicles. Assuming that all used the same batteries as the Tesla Model S implies a consumption of about 100,000 metric tons of lithium annually. At that rate, reserves would last 123 years, and estimated resources 380 years.
A 2011 study on global lithium availability by researchers at the University of Michigan and Ford Motor Company estimated that the cumulative twenty-first-century demand for lithium would likely range between 12 and 20 million tons, depending on assumptions regarding economic growth and recycling rates.

The “common” (though they are obviously still emerging) approaches to adding big data to products involve
services—capturing and analyzing data on how the products are being
used, when they are likely to break, and how they can be serviced most
effectively and efficiently. It’s also possible to use big data to inform
customers about their behavior relative to a product—how to drive a
car in a more energy-efficient manner, for example. Data can also be
embedded in the product itself, as it is for the Tesla Model S. Vehicle
data logs for the car can be used to monitor performance remotely, signal the need for maintenance, and let drivers know how their mileage
and performance compare with other drivers’ experience.
Taking advantage of this lesson can be difficult if your primary
business doesn’t involve big data or related technologies. But there are
several ways to get started if you are a large, not-so-nimble organization.

The first Google style AV to pass the unmapped or incorrectly mapped area will update the map as it passes, but it will of course need the capability of traveling with unmapped, incompletely mapped, or incorrectly mapped instances. And if it can do that autonomously, does it really need the map to proceed? It it cannot do that autonomously, there remain issues with autonomous to human control interfaces.
160 Hull, Dana (2015-10-15) Tesla Model S With Autopilot Isn't Quite `Look Ma, No Hands' Yet. Bloomberg. http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-10-15/tesla-model-s-with-autopilot-isn-t-quite-look-ma-no-hands-yet
161 There is a great deal of uncertainty about what to call autonomous vehicles. Some prefer "self-driving" vehicles. Some maintain these are different things. But just as we had horseless carriages, automobiles, and cars, eventually these will be called autos and cars as well. See the Economist, which maintains they are not the same, as self-driving cars are a step further than autonomous vehicles, which lack steering wheels and human control: http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2015/07/economist-explains?

The luxury/sports sedan market is much smaller in unit sales opportunities but hugely effective in switching the mindset of influential car owners to finally wanting to own an electric car for looks, performance and cool, first adopter cachet, as opposed to just fuel efficiency. And let’s be honest, if you can afford to fork out the price of a luxury vehicle, the cost of fuel is usually the last thing on your mind!
The $70,000 Tesla Model S not only looks like a very cool sports car but behaves like one: it reportedly accelerates from 0 to 60 mph in an incredible 3.7 seconds and for those like me who have a conscience about such things, it is almost twice as energy efficient as the homely sector-leading Toyota Prius. And as if all that were not enough, the influential ‘Consumer Reports’ magazine ranked the Tesla as ‘the best we have ever tested’ with a ninety-nine per cent overall rating.

The story was impressive back then, but, upon reflection, it only demonstrated that the charismatic Lutz could make a good case on what was the most advanced communication tool available in 2005. Consider how the newer tools of sensors, data, location and mobility have changed the game, just for auto executives, not to mention the entire automotive industry.
In February 2013, John M. Broder, a respected New York Times reporter often assigned to the White House, took a Tesla Model S, an elegant electric sedan, for a test drive from Washington, D.C., to New England. He had planned to complete his ride in Boston but, instead, it was ingloriously aborted in Connecticut where the Tesla ran out of power and was towed away on the back of a truck. He photographed the power-sapped Tesla and reported having had a very bad experience in his Times review.
Like Lutz, Elon Musk, Tesla founder and CEO, chose to blog his side of the story.

pages: 181words: 52,147

The Driver in the Driverless Car: How Our Technology Choices Will Create the Future
by
Vivek Wadhwa,
Alex Salkever

The noted science-fiction writer William Gibson, a favorite of hackers and techies, said in a 1999 radio interview (though apparently not for the first time): “The future is already here; it’s just not very evenly distributed.”1 Nearly two decades later—though the potential now exists for most of us, including the very poor, to participate in informed decision making as to its distribution and even as to bans on use of certain technologies—Gibson’s observation remains valid.
I make my living thinking about the future and discussing it with others, and am privileged to live in what to most is the future. I drive an amazing Tesla Model S electric vehicle. My house, in Menlo Park, close to Stanford University, is a Passive House, extracting virtually no electricity from the grid and expending minimal energy on heating or cooling. My iPhone is cradled with electronic sensors that I can place against my chest to generate a detailed electrocardiogram to send to my doctors, from anywhere on Earth.*
Many of the entrepreneurs and researchers I talk with about breakthrough technologies, such as artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, are building a better future at a breakneck pace.

CHAPTER 6
147 It was 3:44 in the morning: “SpaceX Launch—NASA,” http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/
commercial/cargo/spacex_index.html, accessed September 7, 2012.
147 The Dragon capsule was free: Clara Moskowitz, “SpaceX Launches Private Capsule on Historic Trip to Space Station,” May 22, 2012; http://www.space.com/15805-spacex-private
-capsule-launches-space-station.html, accessed September 7, 2012.
147 Just days after the launch: “Space X,” accessed September 7, 2012, http://www.nasa.gov/exploration/
commercial/cargo/spacex_index.html.
148 This flight was, after all: “Elon Musk, CEO and Chief Designer,” http://www.spacex.com/elon-musk.php, accessed September 7, 2012.
148 Many know Elon Musk: Ibid.
148 pretty much at the nadir: Encyclopedia of World Biography,
http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/
Li-Ou/Musk-Elon.html#b, accessed September 7, 2012.
148 By 2002, eBay realized: http://news.cnet.com/2100-1017-941964.html, accessed September 7, 2012.
148 In 2002, Musk became the CEO: Margaret Kane, “eBay picks up PayPal for $1.5 Billion,” CNET News, July 8, 2002; http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/
Li-Ou/Musk-Elon.html#b, accessed September 7, 2012.
149 A year later he founded a second: Will Oremus, “Tesla’s New Electric Car Is Practical and Affordable, as Long as You’re Rich,” Slate, June 20, 2012, accessed September 7, 2012, http://www.slate.com/blogs/future_tense/
2012/06/20/tesla_model_s_new_electric_car_is
_practical_affordable_for_the_rich.html.
149 But Musk said in his celebratory: Ibid.
149 In 2007, just before the biggest: Gabriel Sherman, “The End of Wall Street as They Knew It,” New York magazine, February 5, 2012, accessed September 7, 2012,
http://nymag.com/news/
features/wall-street-2012-2/index3.html.
149 Historically, banks never accounted: Gillian Tett, Financial Times US editor and author of Fool’s Gold, shared this information at a March 10, 2010, presentation at Columbia University; Sherman, “The End of Wall Street as They Knew It.”
150 the majority of business school graduates: personal interview with Roger Martin; Rakesh Khurana, From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2010), 328–31, 349.
150 But by the end of the century: Ibid.
150 Top bankers received astonishing: Linda Anderson, “MBA Careers: Financial Services—A Breadth of Opportunity,” Financial Times, January 29, 2007, accessed September 7, 2012, http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/2/
3baa68a4-ad5a-11db8709-0000779e2340,dwp_uuid=991cbd66-9258-11da
-977b0000779e2340.html#axzz22nEQOvia.
150 When BusinessWeek ran: January 31, 2000, issue, cover story by Michael Mandel.
151 An inequality gap: Sam Pizzigati, “Happy Days Here Again, 21st Century–Style,” Institute for Policy Studies, March 13, 2012, accessed September 7, 2012, http://www.ips-dc.org/blog/
happy_days_here_again_21st_
century-style.
151 Alice Waters’s groundbreaking organic: “About Chez Panisse,” http://en.wikipedia.org/
wiki/Chez_Panisse, accessed September 7, 2012.
152 Just as important, Gen Y: I joined Parsons in 2008, and I am indebted to my Parsons students for these and other insights into Gen Y culture.
152 You can pay about a hundred bucks: TechShop website, http://www.techshop.ws/, accessed September 7, 2012.
152 Make magazine, launched in 2005: http://makezine.com/magazine/, accessed September 7, 2012.
153 The Faires celebrate “arts, crafts”: http://makerfaire.com/newyork/2012/index.html, accessed September 7, 2012.
153 Generation Y, on the other hand: interviews with Kelsey Meuse in my classroom and after graduation.
154 Bombarded with as many as five thousand: Louise Story, “Anywhere the Eye Can See, It’s Likely to See an Ad,” New York Times, January 15, 2007, accessed September 5, 2012, http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/15/business/
media/15everywhere.html?

Musk’s success is down to flair and lateral thinking. When he started Tesla, most electric car manufacturers were building small autos for eco-warriors (who’d rather not be seen on wheels at all), or making wolves in sheep’s clothing – SUVs with large petrol and small ancillary electric motors – in order to take advantage of grants for green vehicles. Musk instead went for comfort and performance. The Tesla Model S does 0 to 60 mph in 4.2 seconds, tops out at 130 mph, and has more boot room and better safety standards than a Volvo. Musk’s ambition is to retire to Mars. His counterproposal to the CHSR is the ‘Hyperloop’, a part pneumatic, part electromagnetic and part solar-powered system, which he claims could fly pods of commuters through elevated steel tubes between San Francisco and LA in about half an hour for a tenth of the price of building its rival.

In the Energy Improvement and Extension Act of 2008, Congress created a lucrative tax break—it’s Section 30(D) of the Internal Revenue Code—for people who can afford to buy electric or plug-in hybrid cars. It’s formally known as the “new qualified plug-in electric drive motor vehicle credit.” It says anybody buying a qualified plug-in electric car—the list of approved vehicles includes sleek, sporty cars like the $105,000 Tesla Model S P85D and the $138,000 BMW i8—can subtract up to $7,500 from the income tax he or she owes Uncle Sam. There are some less exotic cars that qualify—and get a smaller tax credit—but even those models, for the most part, are priced well beyond the reach of an American family making the median income.
In 2016, the IRS estimates, this tax credit reduced government revenues by about $740 million—money that would have come to the Treasury if the credit didn’t exist.

A single sentence buried halfway through the post delivers this disquieting explanation for the cause of the crash: “Neither Autopilot nor the driver noticed the white side of the tractor trailer against a brightly lit sky, so the brake was not applied.” Horrifyingly, Brown’s Model S never slowed, never even thought to slow, because it didn’t see anything it might have needed to slow for.
This apparent whiteout gives us some insight into the way a Tesla Model S equipped with Autopilot perceives the world. In failing to detect the outline of a white truck against a white sky, this ensemble of sensors and interpretive algorithms foundered at the most basic task of vision, resolving a figure from its background. That it did so is unsurprising, though, when we consider what Autopilot was actually designed to do: keep the car centered on well-maintained freeways with clear, high-contrast lane markings.

Anytime a purchase takes place, it is recorded in a public ledger known as the “blockchain,” which ensures no duplicate transactions are permitted. Bitcoin is the world’s largest crypto currency, so-called because it uses “cryptography to regulate the creation and transfer of money, rather than relying on central authorities.” Bitcoin acceptance is growing rapidly, and it is possible to use Bitcoins to buy cupcakes in San Francisco, cocktails in Manhattan, and a Subway sandwich in Allentown. They can also be used to purchase a new Tesla Model S, to pay your DIRECTV bill, to sign up with OkCupid, or even to book a ticket on Richard Branson’s upcoming Virgin Galactic space flight.
Because Bitcoin can be spent online without the need for a bank account and no ID is required to buy and sell the crypto currency, it provides a convenient system for anonymous, or more precisely pseudonymous, transactions, where a user’s true name is hidden.

The real-time nature of Twitter allows news stories to break faster than traditional media (even at the time, my startup, Digg).
In allowing myself to feel these features through the eyes of the users, I can get a sense of the excitement around them.
* * *
This type of thinking can also be applied to larger industry trends.
My colleague and friend David Prager was one of the first owners of the Tesla Model S. The second he received the car he graciously allowed all of his friends to test-drive it. What stuck with me most was not the car, but the sound it made. When he dropped me off, he slammed on the acceleration pedal and was whisked up a large San Francisco hill. All I heard was the electric swish/hum of acceleration. For me, this was like so many sci-fi movies I had seen growing up—it sounded like the future.